My travels through the sleazy world of independent wrestling as seen through the hazy murk of nostalgia and filtered through an addiction to pop culture. Written by a whiny, inconsistent, absent-minded procrastinating Grammar-Nazi.

Friday, September 25, 2009

The YoungCuts Film Festival Starts Today!Friday, September 25th to Thursday, October 1st at Cinema du ParcScreenings every day at 9PM, plus extra screenings on Saturday and Sunday at 3PM.

We had our Opening Gala last night at Restaurant Newtown, officially the High Fidelity HDTV Opening Gala - a charity benefit for the Cedars Cancer Institute hosted by the 2009 YoungCuts Honorary Chairman, Justin Trudeau who gave a rousing and inspriring speech telling the filmmakers that they were not the leaders of tomorrow, but the leaders of today.

In addition to Justin Trudeau, we heard from Ken Murphy, CEO of High Fidelity HDTV who called on young filmmakers to help shake up and add new energy to Canada's Film and TV community. There were also remarks from David Roux, our Master of Ceremonies, Jay Moulton, Chairman of YoungCuts and Louise Kierans, President of YoungCuts. Representing the Cedars Cancer Institute, Jeff Shamie, Executive Director and Gwen Nacos, founder of Cedars CanSupport spoke passionately about the involvement of young people in helping raise money for Cedars.

We also played a short film by Francois Laurent and Elisa Ruggierio, produced by YoungCuts documenting the 4th Annual Cedars Cancer Institute Fuller Landau 'Rain or Shine' Dragon Boat Race & Festival. Jeff and Gwen are delighted with the film and intend to use it to help promote the charity and next year's dragonboat race. The film will be replayed on the last evening of the YoungCuts Film Festival during our Best of the Festival Closing Screening, Thursday, October 1st at 9PM.

Newtown was packed for the event, everyone had a great time, we heard some great speeches and we saw a great film and some great trailers! A fantastic kick-off to the Festival!

If you are not going to be able to make it up for the Festival and would like us to mail you a physical copy of the Program book, just make a donation to the Festival HERE to cover shipping and we will happily mail one out to you with some other memorabilia to the Festival or if you buy one of our production DVDs like you can do HERE we will include a program book in the envelope.

MONTREAL - Inquiring minds just might want to know how the YoungCuts Film Festival is different from the other 385 or so film fests that play Montreal annually.

YoungCuts director Michael Ryan has a ready response: “It’s probably the largest film festival in the world for filmmakers 25 years old and younger. Plus, it’s our mandate not only to give these filmmakers a platform, but also to find them work after.”

That works for me. And that should work for the rest of you, too. All the more so since YoungCuts offers patrons more creative bang for their bucks than almost any entertainment spectacle anywhere.

The 7th YoungCuts fest will showcase 100 films – of all lengths and from all genres known to man as well as a few genres not yet known – from 12 countries, beginning tomorrow and running until Oct. 1 at the Cinéma du Parc. Tickets for screenings are a steal at $7.50 each and even more of a steal if you buy a booklet of 10 for $50.

If you are not blown away by many of these mostly no-budget flicks, you may have to check yourself for a pulse. Okay, no-budget may be a bit of an overstatement. Budgets for the films run anywhere from $50 to $5,000.

“If you totalled the budgets of all 100 films, the amount still wouldn’t cover the catering cost for Transformers 2. Nor would that sum cover more than one second of screen time on Transformers 2,” Ryan muses. “But it’s hard to quantify in dollar figures the blood, sweat and tears these filmmakers put into their work for no salary at all.”

Which explains why Ryan and festival chairman Jay Moulton feel a responsibility to land these filmmakers some work. Through the Canadian Heritage Information Network, Ryan and Moulton have arranged for a group of YoungCuts grads to shoot 80 shorts on Canadian museums and to get paid for their efforts. Over the years, YoungCuts alumni have also shot commercials for the likes of Pepsi, Air Canada and Astral Media.

Oh yeah, and for Montrealers looking for additional incentive to attend, YoungCuts is one of the few to reverse that annoying trend and to move east here along the 401. That’s right, we snagged this one from Toronto.

It began in 2001 as the Toronto International Teen Film Festival, but moved here as YoungCuts in 2006. “We wanted more of an international flavour to the festival and just felt that Montreal would afford us that opportunity,” Ryan says.

“And it has paid off. We now have more films from more countries than ever being submitted.”

Ryan and his team had to sift through some 1,000 fictional, documentary and animated offerings (and combos thereof) from 25 countries to arrive at the top 100. Then they had to go through that batch of 100 to arrive at the “Top 10 Plus 1,” which will screen closing night on Oct. 1.

Among the represented countries are Canada, the U.S., Britain, the Czech Republic, the Philippines, France, Argentina, Egypt, Singapore, India and the first ever entry from Norway.

The Norwegian entry, Emergency Exit, is a riveting short drama about two men entering a bank for opposite reasons. One is dying and decides to empty his account so that he can go out with a bang. The other is a destitute widower and seeks to rob the bank in order to provide for his young daughter. In the chaos following the aborted heist, the thief takes the dying dude hostage. But they soon establish an unusual bond: the Stockholm Syndrome in Oslo, if you will.

“What strikes me most about these films is the passion and the ingenuity of the filmmakers, and then to get these films done on minimal amounts is amazing,” Ryan says. “It all bodes well for the future of filmmaking.”

One of the most dazzling works in this year’s collection is The Meltdown by American director David Green. Part live-action, part computer-generated animation, the short – which will be featured in the Top 10 Plus 1 screening Oct. 1 – looks like it came out of Pixar or Disney or the NFB, for such is its sophistication and brilliance of its premise. Difference is that its budget was in the hundreds.

The Meltdown action takes place in a fridge that’s gone on the fritz. Conditions are sub-polar inside. An orange has perished from the frost. The ham, mayo, butter, spaghetti and leftover Chinese food now fear for their lives. Unbeknownst to humans, these food products can talk and move their parts and get most agitated.

But they have come up with a plan. They conscript a celery stick to try to turn up the temperature in the refrigerator. It’s do or die. Will the celery stick buckle under the pressure? Will the ever-limp spaghetti noodle have to tighten itself up and come to the rescue?

Best check for yourselves. Don’t want to spoil the suspense.

The YoungCuts Film Festival kicks off Friday night and runs until Oct. 1 at the Cinéma du Parc, 3575 Park Ave. Tickets are $7.50 per screening; or 10 tickets for $50. For tickets and information, call 514-285-4591 or go to youngcuts.com.

Mississauga filmmaker Mazi Khalighi's film Foreign Soil has been selected to be screened at Montreal's YoungCuts Film Festival.

A film by Mississauga’s Mazi Khalighi has been selected to be screened at a festivaldesigned to showcase the short works of aspiring Martin Scorseses.

Khalighi’s Foreign Soil was selected from more than 1,000 entries from around the world to be included at the YoungCuts Film Festival in Montreal. It opens Thursday with a gala hosted by honorary chair and Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and continues until Oct. 1.Screenings will be at the Cinema du Parc.

Organizers have received entries from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Argentina, Singapore, India, the Philippines and Armenia. They also received two animated films co-produced by teens from Canada, Israel and Palestine.

Foreign Soil, which was screened at the inaugural Mississauga Independent Film Festival, portrays a family’s acclimatization to a new country. It was described as a gift by Khalighi to his mother Nahid, who led her three young children out of war-torn Iran more than two decades ago.

In a scene from Foreign Soil, Ali, the oldest son, presents his mother with new shoes after she breaks her heel when they first land in the new country.

Khalighi, who was too young to help his mother when they made their journey, said, “Foreign Soil was me giving the shoes to my mom. There are a lot of people with my story, but not all have the outlets to express them.”

At the festival, prizes will be awarded for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Animated Film, Best Original Music, Best Documentary, Best Short Short, Best of Quebec, Best Teen Film, Best Director, Best Film and the Tribute.ca Public Prize.

The seven-year festival is open to filmmakers aged 25 years and younger.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Montreal Comic Con is this weekend. Besides some great comic book professionals, they will have wrestling legend the Honky-Tonk Man there. They will also have the Hulk, Lou Ferrigno. IWS & ISW will have a combined table at the Con and we will have ISW & IWS DVDs for sale at a reduced rate. (NCW is also supposed to be there and they may actually have some DVDs left with Honky-Tonk Man appearing at NCW if you are looking for something for HTM to sign.) It would be worth coming out if only to try and get HTM talking about the good old days because as anyone who has ever read his stuff online knows, the Honky-Tonk Man is not shy with his opinions.

The official announcement:The Montreal Comic Con comes to Place Bonaventure on September 19th and 20th 2009.Honky Tonk man, Lou Ferrigno, Boba Fett(Star Wars) and over 40 artists will be at the event.

NCW very smartly gave Lufisto an opportunity to bring back the best of the late lamented Association de Lutte Femenin promotion and pair them with the best Ontario and US joshis for a show. They drew about 150 which is about capacity for the church hall at Des Erables. I hope they made a profit.

Addy Starr was announced as "Barely Legal" Addy Starr which makes me happy.

Being used to IWS and ISW start times, I showed up just as Portia Perez was winning her match.

The Four-Way Elimination match featured two heels and two baby-faces. They are introduced Japaneses Introduction style which is completely silly. The whole point of doing Japanese intros is to make the match seem special. Doing it every match ruins the effect. Plus it makes it difficult to do the match where the wrestlers start fighting as they are being introduced. Can't interrupt the introductions when they haven't started yet, after all.

The first heel: Anna Minoushka, who has at times been cruelly mocked by the fans as Obelisk's twin sister. Anna was wearing a purple wrap-bra and black pants with dinosaur footprints on Anna's ass. Because we are supposed to be intimidated by the fact that Anna survived a dinosaur stampede or something.

Her ally, Kalamity was dressed in a black and silver pant-suit with the silver mostly on the flared legs. She started out wearing long black gloves but ditched them before the match started.

Roxie Cotton is the face from outside of Quebec. She is wearing an azure blue "Valley Girl" shirt and black skirt. Her leggings match her shirt colour.

The home-town hero is Mary Lee Rose in a jean jacket covered with buttons, purple highlights in her hair and a black low-cut shirt and shorts combination. The highlights on her shirt and her belt match the highlights in her hair.

I have been very critical of Anna Minoushka in the past for not using her weight to bully girls in the ring, but someone has been working with her because she was much better in the first part of this match quite literally throwing her weight around. Kalamity plays the early part of the match smart, allowing Anna to do most of the heavy lifting.

The faces try to team-up but they don't quite clique. Early on, while trying to double-team they accidentally bang their heads together. Anna's lack of a killer instinct betrays her here as rather than making their mistake look real by attacking Anna waits for them to deliver the planned move. Much better is Kalamity: when Marie Lee Rose does a flippy neck-breaker thing and rolls into the corner colliding with Kalamity's knee, Kalamity immediately jumps on her taking advantage of the mis-cue.

Anna gets DQed for excessive violence, excessive only by the standards of Anna. Mary Lee Rose takes advantage of the DQ to eliminate Roxie who turns slightly heelish by decking Mary Lee Rose in retaliation. Anna stays on the outside and is fed Mary Lee Rose, at which point the wagons completely fall off. Holding Mary Lee Rose in her arms, a tired Anna weakly pats her into the side of the ring rather than strongly bashing her into the corner of the ring. Mary Lee Rose doesn't help a tired Anna, quite the opposite as she sandbags her a little.

(Pat Lono beside me gets incredibly frustrated when the female ref comes outside to rescue Mary Lee Rose and Anna meekly submits. Given that this is the same ref that DQed Anna, the proper heel response would have been to slug the pip-squeak.)

Kalamity is by far the best wrestler in the match, not that there is much competition.

Sara del Ray is wearing a black and white (mainly white) sports bra and shorts combo while her opponent Cherry Bomb is wearing a leopard top with pink trim and black pants with strategic cut-outs on the sides of her legs. She is announced as "the cutest girl who could kick your ass" and "she breaks hearts and faces".

Sara del Ray is very generous with Cherry Bomb, but easily outclasses her winning with a modified Fisherman's suplex.

At the end of the match, Sara grabs the mike, "I did not come here to face Cherry Bomb! I came here to face the best! Cherry Bomb, yeah she came close, but she is not the best. I am going to be watching the rest of the show from the back to see if tehre is anyone that can give me some competition."

Kacey Diamond is doing a whole Quebec Hollywood star gimmick. She comes out wearing a tiara and black diaphanous cape, waving to the crowd oblivious to the boos. She is wearing a black and silver shirt and connected shorts ensemble along with long black gloves that she wears throughout the match. She is accompanied by her manager who has a blue-tooth connected to her ear that the manager calls our attention to by constantly touching during the match.

Karen Brooks comes out to Maniac and bounces around like Tigger wearing a reddish pink t-shirt with a stylicized KB on the front and "Brooks 1" on the back plus matching reddish-pink sports shorts along with white sweat head-band and sweat wrist bands.

Kacey warms up the crowd by telling us that we are not worthy to watch her. Brooks has her own idea on how to warm up with a stretching routine that keeps luring in Kacey Diamond for a sneak attack only for Brooks to change position just in time to foil Kacey's attack, like Lucy snatching the football from Charlie Brown.

Kacey's eventual response is to pull out an honest-to-God red carpet that she rolls out to do her Oscar trot on. Kacey Brooks attacks her on the red carpet, then rolls her up in the red carpet for a pin that Kacey Diamond somehow wriggles out of. Karen foolishly unrolls the carpet freeing Kacey Diamond, and promptly loses the match. To add insult to injury, Kacey Diamond poses for non-existent photographers using the dazed Brooks as a prop.

Misty Haven is (aside from Lufisto) Quebec's best Joshi and her match with MsChif was proof positive. Misty's color scheme is purplish-pink with white and she is wearing a sports bra under a shirt and skirt combo. MsChif's favourite colour is obviously green as green highlights her black hair, and her black pants. (Her top is green with black highlights to switch things up.)

Bakais, Quebec (and perhaps Canada)'s best indy ref, is in charge of the match and the reason for that becomes apparent as Bakais searches a grumbling Misty Haven and then moves to search MsChif only for her to scream him away. Misty offers to search instead of Bakais, thinks better of it and then pushes Bakais at MsChif to search her - and both are screamed into the corner. (MsChif is apparently related to Black Canary.)

While the match continues on the comedy line, MsChif proves that she has real wrestling chops with a very nice flip into a bridging pin. Later when Misty has MsChif twisted into a pretzel, the green screamer holds the shape when Misty steps away to admire her handiwork and then rolls out of the Escher shape she is holding.

MsChif continues the screaming Mimi motif after winning the match by drpping Misty on her head.

Lufisto is wearing a plaid skirt and tunic. She is doing her goth anime schoolgirl gimmick complete with her doll/manager Pegaboo.

One of the ways that I judge the quality of matches is how many notes that I took. Four pages of notes means that this was a very good match. The first match between Cheerleader Melissa and Lufisto was voted SHIMMER's match of the year for 2008. I can't speak for this match being that good, but it was pretty damn good.

The early part of the match focuses around Pegaboo with Cheerleader Melissa being dismissive and abusive of the doll and paying the price for it.

The match spills to the outside where Melissa shows a real vicious side using a wheelbarrow hold to scrape Lufisto's face along the floor, then stunning Lufisto with a chair-shot, giving her time to grab one of the ring barriers, drop it on top of Lufisto and then walk across it while jawing the fans.

After rolling Lufisto in, Cheerleader Melissa goes for a series of pins broken up by Lufisto grabbing the ropes either with her hand or foot. Dragging Lufisto to the center for the pin, Melissa is frustrated when Lufisto bridges out of the pin. Frustrated Melissa turns to submission wrestling, but Lufisto again is able to grab the rope for safety.

After a long forearm exchange sequence, Lufisto takes back some contrao of the match with a German Suplex, but quickly falls victim to an absolutely brutal Curb Stomp. Escaping that predicament, Lufisto goes up top, gets caught by Melissa into an Electric Chair, only for Lufisto to flip out of it into a pin that nearly ends the match.

A desperate Cheerleader Melissa tries to finish Lufisto up with a move that is half sidewalk slam and half piledriver, but Lusisto manages to kick out and then bridge out of the follow-up pin. When Lufisto has her chance in turn to drop Melissa on her head, she makes no mistake and gets the pin.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Sara Del Ray breaks up Lufisto's celebrations and the locker room empties to keep the two apart.

A good first show, building on the strengths of ALF. Unfortunately, the follow-up show isn't scheduled until January.

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About Me

I am the Festival Director for the YoungCuts Film Festival; the head writer/publicist/SHILL~ for the International Wrestling Syndicate; and the Commissioner and Worst Ring Announcer in the Multiverse for Inter-Species Wrestling.